An article including a Q&A session with Maxis founder Will Wright has been posted over at CNET News.com. The article starts with an introduction for Will and a brief overview of Maxis' history in the gaming world, from which we got such gaming classics as SimCity and The Sims. It then leads into a detailed question and answer interview on the latest from Maxis; The Sims 2. Many of the questions are based around the psychology of the 'sims' within the game. It seems that the developers have gone to great lengths to try and emulate real people and their emotions.

Here's an extract from the Q&A:

Question: It seems as if there's a lot of psychology behind this. How much of an education do you have in that?

Answer: Enough. We found that it's a lot easier for us to research a topic than it is to take experts and teach them about game development. When it comes to psychology, we looked at hundreds of different theories, and the thing is that none of them are right. They all capture some little element of the truth. So what we end up with is a smorgasbord of various bits and pieces of theory that help clarify parts of the game. The basic needs are coming from Maslow, the personality side is roughly Myers-Briggs, the childhood-to-adult transitions are more Freudian.